The ABC News Political Stock Market is a real-time snapshot of social sentiment, trending, search and the collective assessment of our political experts combined to determine the current 'value' of each 2012 presidential contender.

It's fun, entertainment, or fantasy politics, if you will -- but not polling or predictive. This is political punditry with a sophisticated dash of social media.

So, how do we produce each number you see scrolling across the OTUSNews.com screen?

There are two main ingredients in the secret sauce: 1) the collective analysis of our political experts at ABC News, and 2) social sentiment from publicly available Facebook & Twitter comments, search, trending, and influencer data compiled and weighted in collaboration with Bluefin Labs.